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The team
shock compressed an icy mixture, similar to what is found in comets, which then
created a number of amino acids - the building blocks of life. The research
appears in advanced online publication Sept. 15 on the Nature Geoscience
journal website.

This is the
first experimental confirmation of what LLNL scientist Nir Goldman first predicted in 2010 and again
in 2013 using computer simulations performed on LLNL's supercomputers,
including Rzcereal and Aztec.

Goldman's
initial research found that the impact of icy comets crashing into Earth
billions of years ago could have produced a variety of prebiotic or
life-building compounds, including amino acids. Amino acids are critical to
life and serve as the building blocks of proteins. His work predicted that the
simple molecules found in comets (such as water, ammonia, methanol and carbon
dioxide) could have supplied the raw materials, and the impact with early Earth
would have yielded an abundant supply of energy to drive this prebiotic
chemistry.

In the new
work, collaborators from Imperial College in London and University of Kent
conducted a series of experiments very similar to Goldman's previous
simulations in which a projectile was fired using a light gas gun into a
typical cometary ice mixture. The result: Several different types of amino
acids formed.

"These
results confirm our earlier predictions of impact synthesis of prebiotic
material, where the impact itself can yield life-building compounds,"
Goldman said. "Our work provides a realistic additional synthetic
production pathway for the components of proteins in our solar system,
expanding the inventory of locations where life could potentially
originate."